InvaCost: Economic cost estimates associated with biological invasions worldwide.

InvaCost is the most up-to-date, comprehensive, standardized and robust data compilation and description of economic cost estimates associated with invasive species worldwide¹. InvaCost has been constructed to provide a contemporary and freely available repository of monetary impacts that can be relevant for both research and evidence-based policy making. The ongoing work made by the InvaCost consortium^2,3,4 leads to constantly improving the structure and content of the database (see sections below). The list of actual contributors to this data resource now largely exceeds the list of authors listed in this page. All details regarding the previous versions of InvaCost can be found by switching from one version to another using the “version” button above.

CONTENT: This page contains four files: (1) 'InvaCost_database_v4.1' which contains 13,553 cost entries depicted by 66 descriptive columns; (2) ‘Descriptors 4.1’ provides full definition and details about the descriptive columns used in the database; (3) ‘Update_Invacost_4.1’ has details about the all the changes made between previous and current versions of InvaCost; (4) ‘InvaCost_template_4.1’ (downloadable file) provides an easier way of entering data in the spreadsheet, standardizing all the terms used on it as much as possible to avoid mistakes and saving time at post-refining stages (this file should be used by any external contributor to propose new cost data).

METHODOLOGY: All the methodological details and tools used to build and populate this database are available in Diagne et al. 2020¹ and Angulo et al. 2021⁵. Note that several papers used different approaches to investigate and analyse the database, and they are all available on our website http://invacost.fr/.

VERSION NUMBERING: InvaCost is regularly updated with contributions from both authors and future users in order to improve it both quantitatively (by new cost information) and qualitatively (if errors are identified). Any reader or user can propose to update InvaCost by filling the ‘InvaCost_updates_template’ file with new entries or corrections, and sending it to our email address (updates@invacost.fr). Each updated public version of InvaCost is stored in this figShare repository, with a unique version number. For this purpose, we consider the original version of InvaCost publicly released in September 2020 as ‘InvaCost_1.0’. The further updated versions are named using the subsequent numbering (e.g., ‘InvaCost_2.0’, InvaCost_2.1’) and all information on changes made are provided in a dedicated file called ‘Updates-InvaCost’ (named using the same numbering, e.g., ‘Updates-InvaCost_2.0’, ‘Updates-InvaCost_2.1’). We consider changing the first level of this numbering (e.g. ‘InvaCost_3.x’ ‘InvaCost_4.x’) only when the structure of the database changes. Every user wanting to have the most up-to-date version of the database should refer to the latest released version.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Every user should read the ‘Usage notes’ section of Diagne et al. 2020¹ before considering the database for analysis purposes or specific interpretation. InvaCost compiles cost data published in the literature, but does not aim to provide a ready-to-use dataset for specific analyses. While the cost data are described in a homogenized way in InvaCost, the intrinsic disparity, complexity, and heterogeneity of the cost data require specific data processing depending on the user objectives (see our FAQ). However, we provide necessary information and caveats about recorded costs, and we have now an open-source software designed to query and analyse this database⁶.

CAUTION: InvaCost is currently being analysed by a network of international collaborators in the frame of the InvaCost project^2,3,4 (see https://invacost.fr/en/outcomes/). Interested users may contact the InvaCost team if they wish to learn more about or contribute to these current efforts. Users are in no way prevented from performing their own independent analyses and collaboration with this network is not required. Nonetheless, users and contributors are encouraged to contact the InvaCost team before using the database, as the information contained may not be directly implementable for specific analyses.

RELATED LINKS AND PUBLICATIONS:

¹ Diagne, C., Leroy, B., Gozlan, R.E. et al. InvaCost, a public database of the economic costs of biological invasions worldwide. Sci Data 7, 277 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-00586-z

² Diagne C, Catford JA, Essl F, Nuñez MA, Courchamp F (2020) What are the economic costs of biological invasions? A complex topic requiring international and interdisciplinary expertise. NeoBiota 63: 25–37. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.63.55260

³ Researchgate page: https://www.researchgate.net/project/InvaCost-assessing-the-economic-costs-of-biological-invasions

⁴ InvaCost workshop: https://www.biodiversitydynamics.fr/invacost-workshop/

⁵ Angulo E, Diagne C, Ballesteros-Mejia L. et al. (2021) Non-English languages enrich scientific knowledge: the example of economic costs of biological invasions. Science of the Total Environment 775:144441. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144441

⁶Leroy B, Kramer A M, Vaissière A-C, Courchamp F and Diagne C (2020) Analysing global economic costs of invasive alien species with the invacost R package. BioRXiv. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.10.419432